This post concerns a recent visit to a record store.
There's a record store 10 miles from here. It's one of those hole - in - the - wall places with boxes full of 45s in the back. We're talking thousands upon thousands of them, jammed in every which way. I hadn't visited in a few years, but it was a place I knew well. My first visit had been in 1994, and I had been back many, many times up through 2008 or so. Most of those records didn't even have price tags on them. I used to buy 10 or so at a time, at two bucks a piece, and they were usually pretty scratched up. Sometimes they were so scratched up they'd give a couple to me for free. So I was basically buying worthless records, but I really enjoyed listening to them. I managed to dig up enough garage obscurities to probably break even in terms of money spent. ( They usually sold the garage ones to me cheap as well.)
The other day, I went back. This time my intention was profit, not just the sheer joy of listening. I was looking for northern soul and perhaps garage. I had a plan. I sifted through records, and set aside any that looked promising. I asked the clerk if I could borrow a pen, telling him up front that I wanted to write the names of the records down and then go home and check 'em out. He acted totally OK with this. I wrote down about 100 records. The store was closing, so I placed my stack in a particular box of records, intending to come back in a day or two.This sifting and writing process took me a few hours.
I went home and found out what I could about the records. This also took me a few hours. I circled 12 or so as possible "sound investments." Yes, its true. I was planning to buy them and sell them on eBay. I'll admit it, I was hoping the store would sell them to me pretty cheap so I could make some money.
I returned two days later , and there was a different clerk there. I went back to my stack of records, and selected about a dozen. I took my records up front and the clerk gave them a real good once - over. He told me he would have to confer with his manager about what to sell these records for.( " A lot of these are from really obscure labels." he said) He also said " We've been having people take premium records from the front of the store and hide them in the back, then bring them up front and attempt to buy them cheap."(Was he calling me a thief, or just saying I may have inadvertently picked up some "premiums"?) This was not what I had done, the records I had found were in the back of the store, and that's where I placed them when I left two days earlier. He put the records in a brown paper bag and wrote my name on them. He told me the manager would be there in two days from now and would take a look at them. I could come in then and buy them. The guy seemed nice enough, and me being a nice guy thanked him and went on my way. To his credit, he gave me a free plastic record spacer just for asking.
When I got home, I had some sort of delayed anger attack. I couldn't get over the words " We've been having people take premium records from the front and hide them in the back." I hadn't done that. Was he saying I might be a thief?( The only other time this store had delayed selling me a record was years ago. I had found a Yma Sumac 45 with a beautiful gatefold cardboard cover. The clerk back then told me he'd have to ask his boss about that one, or he said I could buy it for 40 bucks. I declined paying 40 bucks.) It also angered me that I would have to turn around and drive all the way back there just to do something I should have been allowed to do when I brought the records to the counter.
I found myself becoming angry, with the growing sense that I had been mistreated. At home, I called the store and told the clerk who I was. I told him I wanted to contact his manager.He told me the manager did not have a cell phone and would be unreachable until two days from now, when he would be in the store. I told him that sending someone home to wait for a proper price, then having them come back, was crappy. I also told him I sure as hell didn't like him insinuating that I was a possible thief. "I'm sorry if you feel offended. I wasn't saying you might be be a thief." (Oh, really? Even if he was saying I might have inadvertently picked up some misplaced premium records, how was that my fault? ) He also told me that they sometimes delay sales to customers in this manner, so the manager can look at the records. I told him that was ridiculous and I should be able to buy the records while I'm there. I told him it was a major inconvenience. "Im sorry if you feel inconvenienced.." "FEEL inconvenienced? I was inconvenienced." "Well, I have to let the manager see records sometimes, and he wasnt here today."
"So what are YOU there for ?"
"Oh, I guess I should just quit my job then." he whined.
He'd already sent me home, sort of implied I was a thief, and now he was guilt tripping me. I fell for it and back pedaled, saying I was angry at management for setting this policy, not him.
The conversation went on a bit longer and he hung up on me saying something like " I have to help another customer."
So what should I make of this? Was I in the wrong for going home to check the records out and returning for the "stash" ? Was this a serious faux pas ? Had I done something bad ?
Or was did this place have a crappy way of doing business and a crappy clerk? I'd been going to this place for years, told friends about it, RECCOMENDED the place to other collectors. And now this?
As it now stands, I plan to go there in a few days and have a serious talk with that manager and ask for a really good deal on those records. I feel I've been done wrong.
Or have I ?
I didn't mean for this post to be a whole novel, but it just ended up that way.
